Hi everybody!
I have good news from Brazil. The Brazilian Ministries of Fisheries and Environment signed a new law, that means any pelagic longline vessel fishing below the 20° S must now use tori lines during all setting operations and include a weight of at least 60 g placed no more than two meters from the hook. This is a direct result of ATF research! We showed that putting weights close to the hook, makes the line sink faster and consequently out of the reach of seabirds.
The toriline recommended for the law is 130 m long, and is made of a 100 m nylon monofilament line with one metre long colored streamers attached every two metres, plus a towed device, that keeps line tension. This toriline configuration is very similar to the light toriline designed and used by ATF Brazil during the experiments on mitigations measures last year.
No bird was caught during our experiments while tori lines were in use. The combination of 60-75 g weights placed at two metres from the hook and a tori line eliminated seabird attacks on hooks within the first 75 m from the vessel stern. The law is in effect as of last week, so several vessels are now building the appropriate tori line support poles and building the tori lines. Some also have to change the position of the weights on their branch lines. As a consequence, I am helping many boat owners at the moment, and I have been working a lot in the Rio Grande port, providing instructions about the configuration of poles and tori lines. This gives me a very good opportunity to spend some important time with the fishermen, working together to mitigate seabird bycatch and contributing to the fisherman’s awareness about seabird and marine environment conservation.
However, not every fishermen is willing to follow the rules. Some of them think that the modifications will negatively affect the target species catch, or that night settings alone is enough to avoid seabird captures: Or they simply don’t like anyone telling what do to on their own boats!
This situation is a trypical challenge that we face every day during our work in port. Fortunately there are few fishermen resisting these positive changes in Brazilian fishery regulations. This intense work with fishermen also helps us to find vessels and captains that are cooperative so that we can continue conducting our experiments on mitigation measures.
Next week I head out again on board the FV Maria. When I return from the sea I will let you know the news!